• Question: How does vaccination work?

    Asked by A.Lee2004 to Kevin, Liz, Beccy, Rosie on 14 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 Jun 2017:

      Some vaccines have killed virus in them. So the dead virus can’t multiply and so can’t make you sick but your immune system recognizes a potentially dangerous invader and creates immune cells to fight off that particular virus. That way if you later get exposed to a live version of the virus, your body already has an army of immune cells waiting to attack.

      Some vaccines have live virus. Does that sound scary?
      Don’t worry the live viruses have been chosen (and the vaccine safety tested) to make sure that the vaccine virus won’t make you sick but looks enough like the virus you want to protect against that the immune cells created will be useful later.

    • Photo: Rosie Fok

      Rosie Fok answered on 14 Jun 2017:

      It gives your immune system a trial run and protecting you from the infection, in a way that doesn’t make you sick from the disease. It is like being given a mock exam (with the answers at the back) before you have to sit the real thing. When the real thing comes along, your immune system knows what to do to protect you from that infection.

    • Photo: Kevin Pollock

      Kevin Pollock answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      An injection of a protein from the pathogen is injected into the muscle – sometimes a weakened virus is also used e.g. in measles – this stimulates the body into thinking it is being infected and an immune response is generated by the vaccine (person being vaccinated). T and B cells move round the body and some of these become memory cells, lying in wait for any actual infection in the future. They are specific cells so can only respond to the specific infection – which is why a number of vaccines are given over the life course.

    • Photo: Rebecca Corkill

      Rebecca Corkill answered on 19 Jun 2017:

      I think this Ted talk sums it up:

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